Ladies and gentlemen, the Major League Baseball draft lottery may be rigged.

On Tuesday, the third annual draft lottery happened, with the Toronto Blue Jays ending up with the eighth overall pick.
<blockquote class="twitter-tweet" data-width="550" data-dnt="true">
We will select 8th in the 2025 <a href="https://twitter.com/hashtag/MLBDraft?src=hash&amp;ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">#MLBDraft</a>. <a href="https://t.co/YaOyOKMAPI">pic.twitter.com/YaOyOKMAPI</a>
&mdash; Toronto Blue Jays (@BlueJays) <a href="https://twitter.com/BlueJays/status/1866618282817527808?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">December 10, 2024</a></blockquote>
<script async src="https://platform.twitter.com/widgets.js" charset="utf-8"></script>
That sounds good, right? Well, they dropped down three spots and had 7.48% odds to move up to the first overall pick. Moving up to a top 10 position were the Seattle Mariners and the St. Louis Cardinals.
Not just that, but if the draft kept its old format of the worst team picks first, the Blue Jays would’ve still picked higher than they will in 2025, as they finished with the seventh-worst record.
Although it could been significantly better and not much worse, the Blue Jays are still in a good position to fix their farm system. As it stands, the Blue Jays have a bottom farm system with four fringe top 100 prospects: Orelvis Martínez, Ricky Tiedemann, Trey Yesavage, and Arjun Nimmala.
With the eighth overall pick, there are plenty of talented plays around. While they won’t get Ethan Holliday, who is projected to go first overall, <a href="https://www.mlb.com/milb/prospects/2025/draft/kruz-schoolcraft-828244">Kruz Schoolcraft</a> is an intriguing name to keep an eye on, as he grades well as a hitter and a pitcher. Ranking in the eighth spot is prep hitter <a href="https://www.mlb.com/milb/prospects/2025/draft/xavier-neyens-815832">Xavier Neyens</a>, who has a 65 power grade according to MLB Pipeline.
If the Blue Jays wish to go down a college hitter route, Oregon State’s <a href="https://www.mlb.com/milb/prospects/2025/draft/aiva-arquette-804109">Aiva Arquette</a> ranks as MLB Pipeline’s seventh-best draft prospect, featuring a 55 hit tool and 50 power, with a strong arm. Outfielder <a href="https://www.mlb.com/milb/prospects/2025/draft/brendan-summerhill-804911">Brendan Summerhill</a> ranks as their 10th-best prospect and features 55 grades across the board except for his power.
The only time the Blue Jays picked eighth overall was in 1998 when they selected Felipe López. Although he only spent two seasons with the Jays, he was a one-time All-Star and had a lengthy career away from the Jays. They’ve also picked ninth overall twice, picking Matt Stark in 1983 and Jeff Hoffman in 2014.
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As always, you can follow me on Bluesky @ryleydelaney.bsky.social.

Ladies and gentlemen, the Major League Baseball draft lottery may be rigged.



On Tuesday, the third annual draft lottery happened, with the Toronto Blue Jays ending up with the eighth overall pick.

https://twitter.com/BlueJays/status/1866618282817527808

That sounds good, right? Well, they dropped down three spots and had 7.48% odds to move up to the first overall pick. Moving up to a top 10 position were the Seattle Mariners and the St. Louis Cardinals.

Not just that, but if the draft kept its old format of the worst team picks first, the Blue Jays would’ve still picked higher than they will in 2025, as they finished with the seventh-worst record.

Although it could been significantly better and not much worse, the Blue Jays are still in a good position to fix their farm system. As it stands, the Blue Jays have a bottom farm system with four fringe top 100 prospects: Orelvis Martínez, Ricky Tiedemann, Trey Yesavage, and Arjun Nimmala.

With the eighth overall pick, there are plenty of talented plays around. While they won’t get Ethan Holliday, who is projected to go first overall, <a href="https://www.mlb.com/milb/prospects/2025/draft/kruz-schoolcraft-828244">Kruz Schoolcraft</a> is an intriguing name to keep an eye on, as he grades well as a hitter and a pitcher. Ranking in the eighth spot is prep hitter <a href="https://www.mlb.com/milb/prospects/2025/draft/xavier-neyens-815832">Xavier Neyens</a>, who has a 65 power grade according to MLB Pipeline.

If the Blue Jays wish to go down a college hitter route, Oregon State’s <a href="https://www.mlb.com/milb/prospects/2025/draft/aiva-arquette-804109">Aiva Arquette</a> ranks as MLB Pipeline’s seventh-best draft prospect, featuring a 55 hit tool and 50 power, with a strong arm. Outfielder <a href="https://www.mlb.com/milb/prospects/2025/draft/brendan-summerhill-804911">Brendan Summerhill</a> ranks as their 10th-best prospect and features 55 grades across the board except for his power.

The only time the Blue Jays picked eighth overall was in 1998 when they selected Felipe López. Although he only spent two seasons with the Jays, he was a one-time All-Star and had a lengthy career away from the Jays. They’ve also picked ninth overall twice, picking Matt Stark in 1983 and Jeff Hoffman in 2014.

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As always, you can follow me on Bluesky @ryleydelaney.bsky.social.

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